Congressman Kucinich

Fax 202-225-5745

RE: Proposed World Service Corps Bills/Resolutions and how it provides the empowering army of Americans to expand its support.

Dear Congressman Kucinich:

On April 19^th in Mill Valley, California, I attended a presentation pushing for establishment of a Department of Peace by your Peace Alliance (PA) organizations. Establishing a Peace Department is needed and would be wonderful, but it requires a “consciousness shift” among the electorate, which your staff recognizes and espouses.

As I said to the PA staff and the audience that night, one can build an organization from the top down or from the bottom up. Most experienced, practical builders would favor building from the bottom up, or at least mixing the two approaches in order to build a strong, sustainable organization that Middle America understands and supports.

My two World Service Corp proposals offer the Peace Alliance the opportunity to build the army that creates peace and understanding, which in turn expands the electoral support that builds the Department of Peace.

One does not have to spend much in researching “tools and policies that can bring peace.” During the Vietnam War some of us knew and were using the tools that build peace. Since 1961, about 175,000 Peace Corps Volunteers have served, a long way from the yearly million-person Peace Army Kennedy wanted deployed by the 70’s. During our Vietnam War years of 1965-74, 2,075 times as much was spent on the Pentagon’s map than on the Peace Corps.

Each soldier in Vietnam cost taxpayers $149,661. Each PCV cost $8,709. Instead of sending 2,582,304 soldiers to Nam, for the same, but bloodless, cost we could have rolled the Viet Cong with 23,240,736 book-armed teachers, pitch-forked ag workers, needle-wielding health workers and builders who could have hand-built a Mekong River Valley Power Authority that would have dwarfed our Tennessee Valley Authority.

As a politician, you know the efficiency of such enlightened actions. Some of us know that from practical experiences through working Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, and Habitat projects. And most Americans trust what the organizations in the WSC proposals have proven themselves able to do more than they trust the words of politicians, even when those words are good and right.

One of the reasons a Department of Peace doesn’t exist today is because Kennedy’s visionary goal of annually having a million PCVs serving in the world since 1970 wasn’t implemented. Consequently, not enough Americans have those gritty, gusty Peace Corpish experiences that allow a super majority of Americans to understand and support establishing a Peace Department.

My WSC proposals call for implementing Kennedy’s goal and thereby spreading worldwide peace and productivity. Enacting the WSC proposals helps implement the raison d’etre of the Department of Peace by:

1) Raising the political IQ of Americans so their hearts understand the efficacy of the Peace Department – or in Peace Alliance words “shifts America’s consciousness;”

2) Building the peaceful, productive, diplomatic army that produces the goals of a Peace Department – or reduces poverty and ignorance and thereby builds a more peaceable world.

My two WSC proposals encourage national service for all Americans, and require service of those aged 18-26. Under the proposals, those 18-26 and others would have their choice of serving in the Peace Corps, AmeriCorps, Habitat for Humanity, Head Start, Doctors Without Borders, or the Red Cross. One WSC proposal would require one year of service. If Americans choose the second WSC proposal and volunteered for two years of service, two years of community college and two years of state college (approximately $15,000) or vocational or graduate school tuition fees equivalent would be paid. Details and the full bills are at my web site: www.dwaynehunn.biz.

Similar requests have thus far been made to those CCed below.

I would like to find a way to build support for and spread the WSC proposals through some form of partnering with your PA organizations. I hope to be soon discuss this with Dot Maver and other PA staffers.

I look forward to your reply. Thanks for your consideration.

Sincerely,

Dwayne Hunn, Ph.D.

CC: Senators Feinstein, Boxer; McCain, Collins, Kennedy, Dodd, Coleman, Dole, Specter, Hatch, Clinton, Obama, Snowe, Smith.

Representatives Woolsey, Lantos, Walsh, Honda, Shays, Petri, Lee, Farr, Saunders.

P.S.

As a Clevelander and member of the same Croatian Lodge as you, my extended family and I have always admired your stands. Keep up the good fight.